He nodded. “Very well. I missed that.”
“Your Honor, the problem here is that some agency of the government is attempting to cover up what may be perfectly legitimate military or civilian governmental tests of certain aircraft in the area, and they have apparently decided that the wreckage of my client’s aircraft may somehow lead to exposure of whatever they’re doing. In their pursuit of secrecy, they are causing great harm to the career, the reputation, the financial health, and the mental health of Captain Rosen, and if their actions have not already damaged or destroyed physical evidence that would vindicate him of the career-ending FAA charges against him, the actions they are about to take almost surely will. Specifically, I’m referring to the broken propeller and evidence that Captain Rosen had a monstrous mechanical problem that caused the crash, rather than the crash resulting from negligent operation. This is why I’m also filing a complaint against the FAA—”
“Hold it, Ms. O’Brien. Don’t hand that to me yet.”
“Sir?”
“I’ll accept the first filing, and I’ll issue the restraining order just as you’ve drawn it. But I don’t think you want to file against the FAA here in Seattle.”
The rarity of dealing with a federal judge without an opposing lawyer present was strange enough, but to get legal advice from such a man was all but scary. Gracie felt herself wobble off-center, as though a spinning gyro had suddenly become unbalanced. She fought herself back to center and cocked her head.
“Your Honor, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. This action necessitates a TRO as well against the FAA for essentially collusive activity with other federal agencies in attempting to suppress, secrete, or destroy exculpatory evidence that would clear Captain Rosen immediately, thus preventing massive continuing harm.”
“Oh, I expected you were going to do that.”
“Yes, sir—”
“But who in the FAA are you planning to serve these papers on, if I accept them?”
“Well, the FAA has a large presence here, sir, especially in Renton.”
He nodded. “I know. The Northwestern Mountain Region.” He sighed. “Let me suggest to you that a better forum would be Washington, D.C. All the major players are there, including the FAA administrator. Chasing the proper officials all over the local region can lead to heartfelt pleas to the court from government attorneys for schedule relief and reset hearings and other delays your client obviously does not need.”
“So… I should, perhaps, go to a federal district court for the District of Columbia?”
“Doesn’t that sound more reasonable? You’ve got the basic TRO, show-cause, and order for protection and production. I’ll sign those, postpone the show-cause hearing set for Monday, and stand by to transfer it all to D.C. Now, I will accept your suit against the FAA if you insist, but if you elect to file that in D.C. and request consolidation with a D.C. court, the cases could be transferred immediately.”
“Yes, sir. I see what you mean. I had not considered that. Okay, I’ll hang onto the FAA action.”
The judge began signing the various orders Gracie had prepared, checking the verbiage as he went and separating the small pile. She took back the pleadings against the FAA as he handed over the signed copies. “These will be stamped with the case number Monday morning,” he said, getting to his feet and nodding toward the door. She thanked him and took her leave, slipping behind the wheel of her Corvette in a minor daze, the logistics of moving the fight to the nation’s capital running roughshod over the need to reexamine the best way to proceed.
I really need to get Ted Greene on the phone!
Her irritation had built to the threshold of anger that the Beltway lawyer who was supposed to be so helpful had failed to return her calls for two days.
She reached in her purse for her PDA and found Ted Greene’s home number in Alexandria, Virginia. She’d given up leaving messages on his beeper and voice mails on his office phone. Maybe, she thought, she’d catch him at home on a weekend.
Gracie entered the number but held off punching the send button, remembering she was still in the judge’s driveway. She backed out and maneuvered a half block down the street before pulling to the side.
Greene answered on the third ring.
“Ted? Gracie O’Brien. Thank heavens.”
“Yes.”
“In Seattle? Remember, the Rosen case?”
“Yes, Ms. O’Brien. What can I do for you so… late on a Saturday evening?”
She caught the unfriendly edge in his voice and glanced at her watch, realizing it was past nine P.M. in Alexandria and she hadn’t considered the time zones.
“I apologize for the hour, but I need to let you know what I am doing.” She outlined the actions she had just filed, the one filed the day before, and the judge’s recommendation regarding the FAA suit.
The voice from Alexandria was icy. “Oh, wonderful. Did you specifically name the Federal Aviation Administration in that TRO action, Ms. O’Brien?”
“Call me Gracie, please.”
“Please answer the question.”
“Well, yes,” she said, much of her mind distracted by the obvious hostility in his voice. “I didn’t name the FAA as the only party, but I included them as a named arm of government to incorporate the possibility that they might be involved as a volitional party to these acts. Now I need to have you file this new action that is directly against them. I’ve got it all drawn up.”
“I see. So you retained me as a ranking expert on dealing with the FAA, but now you want to send me your work product and have me just accept your filing papers and find a court up here to file them in, or should I go do what you just did in Seattle and inconvenience a federal judge on a Saturday night so you can fire an ill-timed broadside at a major federal agency and utterly destroy the work in progress?”
“What work in progress? And what do you mean, ill-timed?”
“Ill-timed. Ridiculously timed, in fact.”
“Why? How?” She could feel herself flushing in potential embarrassment at the possibility she could have made a major mistake.
“Well, let’s see,” he was saying, his voice just short of a sneer. “For starters, I have just begun the delicate dance with the FAA I was retained to conduct, an interaction involving the careful and professional people I work with all the time at FAA headquarters, people whom I can deal with more often than not without litigation. But, if I follow your playbook, these same folks Monday morning would walk into eight hundred Independence Avenue only to discover that something that they thought was still very much in gentlemanly negotiation had turned into a godforsaken war over the weekend. And with my name associated, I’d be in the position of essentially breaking my implied word.”
“Implied…? Mr. Greene, I think we have more than a few elements of misunderstanding here. First, I was under the impression that I hired you, yet you’re speaking to me as if I’m some misbehaving junior associate.”
“You retained me for the Rosens. I represent them. I allowed you to tag along as a baby lawyer playing cocounsel, especially after I read your curriculum vitae and discovered you had almost no experience. And here we are screwing up an otherwise lovely Saturday evening with the news that instead of consulting me, you’ve gone off half-cocked and sued the world.”
Gracie felt the embarrassment metastasizing into anger, her breathing becoming more rapid as the need for caution competed with the desire for counterattack. But she also needed his counsel and his representation, no matter how obnoxious he was. And the captain, in particular, needed him.
“I take it, Mr. Greene,” she said, “that you don’t check your beeper or your office voice mail on the weekends. In fact, I left messages with your secretary all day yesterday and have been trying to reach you on the beeper since yesterday afternoon.”